Students explore their own interests and participate in faculty research through honors, projects, individual-study courses, and the UMW Summer Science Institute. The University is committed to undergraduate research and offers funding for such projects on a competitive basis. Recent student-project topics include: computing for mobile devices, robotics, game programming, graphical interface design, and client natural language processing. The department also encourages students to submit papers for technical conference presentation, which can jumpstart a promising research-and-development career.
Students engaged in undergraduate research earn credits by registering for individual studies (CPSC courses numbered 391 or 491 – 1 to 4 credits). Another undergraduate research option is the URES 197 course in which the student works on the faculty member’s research project and completes research tasks connected with that project as determined by the faculty member.
Summer Science with Ian Finlayson 2024
- Connor Hairfield: A Shortcut to Parallel Programming in Java
- Mackenzie Swain: Creating a Jguardrail Plugin for IntelliJ IDEA
Individual Study with Jennifer Polack 2023-204
- Nicholas Annunziata, Creating a Game to Learn Python Functions in Unity
- Niko Toro, Creating a Game to Learn If statements in Unity
- Ben Ford, Creating a Game to Learn Python Variables in Unity
- Brenden Highlander & Jayden Wynes, Creating a Web Database for Moss Free Clinic
- Fredericksburg United Methodist Food Resources Database
- Aelliana Seidenstein & Nolan Tobin, Creating a Web Database for Fredericksburg United Methodist Food Resources Database
- Ryan Warren, Creating a Web Database for Old Dominion Human Society Database
Departmental Honors Thesis with Stephen Davies 2023 – 2024
- Harmony Peura, The Interaction Between Heterogeneous Voting Strategies and Dynamic Vote-Seeking Campaigns: an Agent-Based Model.
- Justin Mittereder, Exploring the Impact of Social Network Density and Agent Openness on Societal Polarization.
Departmental Honors Thesis with Jessica Zeitz 2024 – 2023
- Sarah Blevins, Accessibility in Web Design
- Owen Chong, Interactive Data Visualization as an Aid for Undergraduate Degree Planning
Departmental Honors Thesis with Jessica Zeitz 2024 – 2023
- Sarah Blevins, Accessibility in Web Design
- Owen Chong, Interactive Data Visualization as an Aid for Undergraduate Degree Planning
Honor’s Program Project with Prashant Chandrasekar 2024
- April Groce, Automated Assessment and Guidance of Project Work
Individual Study with Prashant Chandrasekar 2023 – 204
- Alip Yalikun: Topic Modeling using Llama2
- Matthew Shinko: LLMS Used for text summarization
- Clark Saben: Making debugging accessible
- Clark Saben, Shane Alexander, Christian Jakob: Hackathon: Weapon Target Assignment Simulation
- Jerald Rutledge: Chat-interface for Project-based learning milestone reporting
Data Science Capstone Project with Stephen Davies 2023 – 2024
- Veronica Cagle, “More polarized than ever?’ Evidence from social media.
Investigate
- Decide what research areas interest you.
- View faculty pages to see past and current research projects and interests.
- Take note of what classes you enjoy more than others. This may help you decide where you would like to do research.
Discuss
- Make an appointment with the faculty member whose work you are interested in.
- Bring your research idea or proposal and be prepared to discuss your academic career to date.
- Show your enthusiasm for your proposed project!
- UMW’s Summer Science Institute: earn room, board, and a stipend while engaging in 10-week summer research program with a faculty mentor.
- Grants from the College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Office: Deadlines apply!
Once your proposed research project has been approved by a faculty member, pick up the green individual study registration form from the Registrar. Complete the following steps:
- Fill in your personal information
- Select a title for your project
- Submit the form to your faculty sponsor for their signature
- Submit the form to the department chair for final approval
- Submit the form to the Registrar’s office